As some of you have read in my Face Plant thread, I'm pretty much permanently going to be a member of this crew. I've got titanium in my left leg, my right leg, and my right arm. I'll post a few x-ray pics.

Left femur--simple fracture which reduced well.

Right femur--open fracture with massive destruction. Three inches of bone lost and still trying to heal the fracture, some 21 months later. There will be some grafting and plating, then the bone will be broken again and the Ilisarov fixator reinstalled to lengthen the bone and leg to the original length.

Left humerus--the head of the humerus was broken into multiple pieces (the surgeon described it as dust). More work will be done to this after I've got two good legs under me.

Still in a wheelchair at the moment, but that is not my future. I plan on riding and working again. Count on it.

I don't know about the rest of them - but mine ain't steel. Mine's Titanium!

I don't think stainless is used at all anymore -- the modulus of titanium is closer to that of bone, so it helps the bone heal better than stainless steel. The problem with stainless was that it has a higher modulus than bone, so the bone would not get stressed enough to heal properly.

I may be joining the club soon. The Ortho wants to fuse L3 and L4 in my lower back due to an old injury that gets aggravated often. Although it doesn't hurt all the time, it can show up without notice. Right now I'm sitting at home on my back since I aggravated the injury on small chicken shit jump last Saturday on the local MX track. Transitions (standing, sitting, laying down) are a bitch. Walking is brutal right now, but it is improving.

Any words of wisdom would sure be appreciated. The thought of electing to install screws and a plate to hold 2 vertebrae together, not to mention the recovery time is not very appealing.

I may be joining the club soon. The Ortho wants to fuse L3 and L4 in my lower back due to an old injury that gets aggravated often. Although it doesn't hurt all the time, it can show up without notice. Right now I'm sitting at home on my back since I aggravated the injury on small chicken shit jump last Saturday on the local MX track. Transitions (standing, sitting, laying down) are a bitch. Walking is brutal right now, but it is improving.

Any words of wisdom would sure be appreciated. The thought of electing to install screws and a plate to hold 2 vertebrae together, not to mention the recovery time is not very appealing.

just finished a series of epidural shots...3 shots over 6 weeks...of steroid anti inflammatory cocktail. Back pain down 50%....only sciatica now. I'm probably going for another series and put off surgery until November. You might try it.

I may be joining the club soon. The Ortho wants to fuse L3 and L4 in my lower back due to an old injury that gets aggravated often. Although it doesn't hurt all the time, it can show up without notice. Right now I'm sitting at home on my back since I aggravated the injury on small chicken shit jump last Saturday on the local MX track. Transitions (standing, sitting, laying down) are a bitch. Walking is brutal right now, but it is improving.

Any words of wisdom would sure be appreciated. The thought of electing to install screws and a plate to hold 2 vertebrae together, not to mention the recovery time is not very appealing.

A guy the worked for me had his lower spine fused. After a long healing process, he was back to his old self. That is not a good thing, he kept stressing the back the way that he did before the first surgery. So after 5 years of abuse after the first surgery, he had a second surgery. He seemed to get the hint. He dialed back his activities to not stress the back so hard.

Word of advice would be to dial down the stress on the back or you will have to go back for another surgery. Talk to your Dr and ask about how the surgery will move the stress points and how can you minimize the stress on those points.

Yes, that's what I've seen too. It seems to me as a layman, this surgery doesn't 'fix' the problem- it just fuses the worn bits so that the stresses get moved up/down to the next joint which begins to suffer from the added stresses imposed.
It's different strokes for different folks- but I know one guy who didn't 'slow down' and he's now on his seventh surgery and near enough a walking cripple... But still walking...

__________________
Out of 10,000,000 sperm, YOU! Were the one who WON! So, Do your Mamma Proud.... Go Hard! Or go home.... Cheers, Havagoodone....

So - I'm assuming that it only counts if you came by your heavy metal due to bike-related trauma? I had bilateral hip resurfacing surgery eight weeks ago. Steel-on-steel. Been walking without crutches for four weeks now, and I have to wait another four before riding.

lesson learned: don't decide to try to squeeze in one more hard single track trail at the end of a long day of riding when you haven't eaten all day and are feeling the effects of your blood sugar crashing...

fortunately, i recovered pretty much 100%. modern medicine is pretty amazing.

So after not gaining anymore bendiness with five months of PT, I opted to buy the ridiculously expensive torture device.

That was a month ago. Since then, my PT dude has pretty much discharged me, saying he can't do much more. I have maybe gained a few degrees of bend, but more or less am stuck at no further than being able to make my arm into a right angle.

I was so frustrated that I couldn't ride dirt, that I bought a new street bike. Then I realized I couldn't even bend my arm enough to buckle my own helmet, but found they make a little plastic quick release thingy that I could manage to hook with one hand.

So here I am, with an arm that isn't nearly what it used to be, but I'm learning to adjust and I am back in the woods and riding dirt and doing other really stupid things.

Last Sunday I even participated in a hillclimb (bikes trying to go UP a double black diamond hill at a local ski lodge in front of 2000 spectators) moto event and got 18th place out of the 42 in my class.

Phew! That was close.

For your amusement, here is a link to a great photo play by play from our ADV thread of my first run.

So in other words, it will be dark and gloomy for awhile there, my fellow injured inmates, but if you live to ride, there is hope!

__________________Who is Zora?
"That's hard to explain... Have you ever stood on the edge of an active volcano, with a tornado in it, during an earthquake? A lot like that... But with whiskey... And bunnies." -Benron

A guy the worked for me had his lower spine fused. After a long healing process, he was back to his old self. That is not a good thing, he kept stressing the back the way that he did before the first surgery. So after 5 years of abuse after the first surgery, he had a second surgery. He seemed to get the hint. He dialed back his activities to not stress the back so hard.

Word of advice would be to dial down the stress on the back or you will have to go back for another surgery. Talk to your Dr and ask about how the surgery will move the stress points and how can you minimize the stress on those points.

Good luck with the back!

this is great advice. Mydoc said Replacement discs, to maintain flex , are only covered by insurance for thoractic and cervical(neck) but not lumbar; because it hasn't proven any better than fusion for lumbar. If you dont get fusion, then after 10yrs or so the disc continues its collapse until you're bone on bone and the vertabre will fuse togehter by themselves so you still end up with fusion, just weaker bond. And you still have to get areas cleared to allow the nerves to flow thru unpressured. I'm getting L5S1 fusion so that I CAN keep doing my crazy shit....but I'm taking this guys advice and not moving fridges or picking up heavy stuff or anything that will force me into another fusion...my other discs look great and i wanna keep them that way as long as possible. Am taking the shots in the back to keep my summer fun and i'll get the fusion in fall. Dont know if my choices are right but i'm moving ahead with the plan.

this is great advice. Mydoc said Replacement discs, to maintain flex , are only covered by insurance for thoractic and cervical(neck) but not lumbar; because it hasn't proven any better than fusion for lumbar. If you dont get fusion, then after 10yrs or so the disc continues its collapse until you're bone on bone and the vertabre will fuse togehter by themselves so you still end up with fusion, just weaker bond. And you still have to get areas cleared to allow the nerves to flow thru unpressured. I'm getting L5S1 fusion so that I CAN keep doing my crazy shit....but I'm taking this guys advice and not moving fridges or picking up heavy stuff or anything that will force me into another fusion...my other discs look great and i wanna keep them that way as long as possible. Am taking the shots in the back to keep my summer fun and i'll get the fusion in fall. Dont know if my choices are right but i'm moving ahead with the plan.

All good insight. My Doc says my discs are fine but what I have is spondylosis in the lumbar developed from strain. The X-rays show my L3 is clearly forward of L4 and L2 and that's why he wants to fuse them. My next stop is the MRI. No matter what I end up doing, I think my days on the MX track are over. My back apparently can't take the abrupt landings anymore. I'm not giving up on the gnarly trails though.

I'm still recovering from last Saturday's episode at the track. This is the worse one I've had in over 25 years. My wife says I'm nuts doing this kind of stuff at age 53. She may have a point. I guess I'll need to park the KTM300EXC for a while and ride the DR650 or Super Tenenre on the FSRs.